


I'm About To Ruin the Image and the Style that You're Used To

by innie



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: AU, Bottom Harry, M/M, Top Eggsy Unwin, unconventionalcourtship challenge (Harlequin/Mills&Boon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-02 11:51:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15795939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: Again for unconventionalpairing - this time it's the famous original fic I planned to write, a Harry/Eggsy and Merlin/Percival story. Based on this summary:(167) Mr. (Not Quite) Perfect by Jessica HartWhat do women really want?Journalist Allegra Fielding has a problem. She's pitched a story to her boss—how to transform a not-so-perfect man into Prince Charming—and now she has to deliver! But where is she going to find a man willing to take part in a makeover? Time to blackmail her roommate, Max….But Allegra's cunning plan backfires spectacularly when Max refuses to be "perfected"! He's a guy who knows what he likes, and he's going to enjoy proving to Allegra that there's nothing hotter than a man who's a little rough around the edges….Once again, I tweaked it - Eggsy isn't trying to prove anything to Harry by resisting his tuition - but it all ends happily for the good guys, don't you worry.





	I'm About To Ruin the Image and the Style that You're Used To

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground, which is turning out to be a real treasure-trove in terms of fic titles.

He should be paying attention to what Merlin is saying - the man never wastes words - but Harry cannot focus on anything but the fact that Merlin's jumper is entirely the wrong hue for his colouring. If it were a darker green, forest like an _Ornithoptera priamus_ rather than the sage of an _Actias luna_ , it would suit him admirably; Merlin requires bold colours that can stand up to his sharp, incisive features. But that jumper -

"If I admit that the jumper is Michael's, will you stop eyeing my chest like a calorie-counting cannibal and bloody well listen to what I'm saying?" Merlin asks impatiently.

"Darling, I do love it when you go all alliterative," Harry drawls. "It reminds me of our halcyon days." Merlin had had a line of invective that had been one of the university wonders. His accent had only added to the effect.

"It reminds me I've had a millstone marked Harry Edmund Hart hung round my neck for more than half my life," Merlin snaps back, evidently not liking to be reminded of the days when they attended the same lectures, each sure the other one would be taking proper notes. "Harry, please, _listen_."

"What is it?"

"There's a lad - a good lad, better than his situation lets him be - I want to keep out of the nick. Releasing him to his mother's no good, as she'll just let his stepfather -"

"Run roughshod over him? Put him to work?" Harry suggests. Merlin has a heart big as the outdoors, but he knows better than to let it bleed for every unfortunate living in the worst pockets of London; what makes this boy different?

"Beat him black and blue, or sell him, more like, on top of 'putting him to work,'" Merlin says bluntly. "Put your hand out, Harry. Take him on, give him some polish, something he can use to lift himself out of the cesspit he's in. I swear he's got the brains to do you proud."

Well. That's more emotion than he's ever heard from Merlin regarding anybody other than Michael. Watching his two closest friends fall madly in love and commit, joyously, to each other day after day is, to date, the most bittersweet experience of Harry's life. He's had love affairs that felt less vital than the vicarious, wistful happiness he knows whenever he watches Michael open the door to his future husband and smile like he can't believe his luck.

It shouldn't sting that Merlin begs again, as if his asking might not be enough. "Will you, Harry?"

"Of course." No need to let on that he knows how disappointed Merlin and Michael were when he left lepidoptery behind for fashion and lifestyle consultations when he came into more money than any unattached man really needed. He's justified his decision to himself so many times that this latest repetition comes almost without a sting of regret: he would never have changed the world as a lepidopterist, but in his current profession, he beautifies and improves at least one small corner of it. His work might not be as noble as Merlin's nor as glamorous as Michael's, but his time is his own and there are a few dozen young men in London who have learnt to be gentlemen through his thorough grounding. "I look forward to meeting this young man," he says graciously, and Merlin's smile is a thing of sudden beauty.

*

He's just a boy. A boy who hesitates on the doorstep of the showroom, looking over his shoulder at the street as if even Savile Row in a downpour is more welcoming than Kingsman, which, frankly, Harry rather resents. 

Unseen, Harry clocks it, and he thinks the boy spends a good twenty seconds eyeing the antlers hung above the mannequins and shaking his head. Harry loves them; the visual pun they make on his name is the perfect touch of levity within the traditional environs. 

The boy pivots on the heels of his abominable, adhesive-white trainers, and Harry sucks in a shocked breath. The boy's face is dreadfully asymmetrical, one side promising pleasant good looks and the other dominated by a spectacular black eye, an ugly gash through the eyebrow, and bruising from cheekbone to jaw. He obviously had another encounter with his brute of a stepfather; Merlin's urgency was well-founded, it seems.

Harry starts forward, ducks back into the small bathroom briefly, and sets out again, this time bearing a towel. "Hello, you must be . . . Detective Inspector McGrath's friend," he says, wishing he'd thought to ask Merlin for the boy's name. The boy has frozen in the middle of the showroom, and is doing a stellar impression of a rainspout; Harry observes that there is quite a puddle that his poor Aubusson is trying to absorb, without notable success. "My name is Harry Hart. Do let me offer you a chance to dry off."

The boy's accent is so dreadful it puts Harry in mind of Eliza Doolittle at her cockney worst; _guttersnipe_ is the damning word that springs to mind. "Yeah, thanks, mate - Mr. Hart, I mean," the boy says, reaching out damp, chilled fingers to take Harry's plush sapphire hand towel. "Least my hair ain't too wet" - he flicks the underside of the brim of his white cap almost jauntily, sending a small stream flowing - "but this jacket weren't meant to be waterproof, yeah?" Harry is frankly struck dumb when the boy peels off his hideous outerwear and sponges the water tenderly away, as if any dimming of its garish gold-on-black pattern were not a consummation devoutly to be wished. That task completed, he runs the towel cursorily over his bare forearms - unobjectionable figure and clear skin, Harry notes thankfully - and says, "Thanks," while holding the damp towel uncertainly, halfway between his own body and Harry's.

"It is proper to offer the tool back to the lender once use has been made of it," Harry assures him, taking it. From the look on the good half of his face, the boy is not notably relieved to learn this particular point of etiquette. "My thanks."

The boy's eyes - a bluish-green that calls to mind Egyptian faience - dart over to meet his own, apparently judging his sincerity. Harry plasters on his most unassuming smile while rifling through his mental dictionary; Merlin can call him dramatic all he wants, but he cannot deny that Harry is astute in calling the task of turning this bruised chav into a gentleman with the unmistakeable Kingsman stamp nothing short of sisyphean.

"Eggsy," the boy says incomprehensibly, hugging his garish jacket close. Harry affixes a look of polite confusion to his face, mentally totting up just how much Merlin owes him for a favour of this magnitude. "My name's Eggsy."

"I doubt that," he says, though gently. Merlin became _Merlin_ partly because his hangover remedies were downright magical, but mostly because he refused to allow himself to be part of a couple with the same name, a Michael-and-Michael duo for outsiders to coo over. "It may be your preferred name, but hopefully it is not your given name."

Eggsy peers up at him through dark, wet eyelashes. "Gary Unwin," he says readily enough, then tacks on a complaint. "But even Merlin calls me Eggsy!"

 _Merlin_ , is it? How long has his friend taken an interest in Eggsy - damn it all, the name _is_ catchier than Gary - if they are close enough that the boy uses the name that is the privilege of friends? "Very well," Harry says, making a point of his concession so that the boy remembers his magnanimity and doesn't kick up a fuss over the far more necessary improvements to come, "we can use your _nom de guerre_."

He's so sure of a confused frown that Eggsy's bright grin takes him utterly by surprise. "Bruv, who ain't I been fighting?"

"Engaging in undignified fisticuffs is not the same as being a true warrior or a knight," he says, and Eggsy reels back, chastened. Fuck. The boy was beaten by his stepfather, not out picking indiscriminate fights to assert his virility; he has Merlin vouching for him and still Harry dismissed him without consideration. He goes from bad to worse. "A proper knight would remove his hat once indoors."

Eggsy flushes and obliges, the pink in his good cheek setting off toffee-coloured hair quite nicely. His colouring's too fair to pull off the biscuit-coloured jackets that are just coming back in, but they can play with it, perhaps use that hue in a waistcoat instead. The edges of his hair are dark with damp, reminding Harry that Eggsy still needs drying off and warming up. 

"Come through to my office," he says. "We can discuss your situation over tea."

He wasn't implying anything about money - he in fact owes Merlin a lifetime of favours, though this one seems likely to drive him round the bend, and in any case, even discounting his staggering inheritance, he makes enough from his paying pupils to allow for this anomalous charity case - but Eggsy's blush grows deeper. "Din' wanna get water over all your floors," Eggsy says, shifting so that Harry can hear his ghastly winged trainers squelch unpleasantly.

"Most considerate of you, Eggsy," he says, and fetches yesterday's _Sun_ to lay before the boy's feet and takes the jacket and cap to hang out of sight, along with the towel. Eggsy toes off his trainers - abominable habit, that is literally why shoe horns were invented - revealing soaked athletic socks riddled with holes, but still steps so gingerly that Harry wonders if his body was beaten as thoroughly as his face. He detours, making for the kitchenette rather than the office. The kitchenette is just a fridge, sink, and electric kettle, and he gestures the boy into a chair while filling the kettle. "What is your preferred blend?" he asks, demonstrating the courtesy that he strives to instill in all of his clients, as it's never too early to begin.

"I'll have whatever you're having, Mr. Hart," the boy says after only a brief pause, and Harry smiles to himself at seeing so much of Merlin in Eggsy; he's always liked the valiant ones. Merlin's favourite Assam, then. He pulls milk from the small fridge and a paper bag of madeleines from the cupboard and puts them both on the round gateleg table next to the sugar bowl. It's a pretty thing, Delft blue with a pleasing pattern of flowers, and Eggsy's finger is delicately tracing the blue lines. If the boy already has an instinctive appreciation for the finer things, perhaps this will not be such an uphill slog.

Eggsy puts no sugar or milk in his tea, surprising Harry, and he waits for Harry to put a madeleine on his saucer before trying one himself. Both tea and cake appear to please him; he's not quite finished chewing when he says, "This's nice, thanks."

The boy has some instinct for propriety, even if his execution is poor. "You're quite welcome." Harry abhors fidgeting, but finds himself busying his hands: pouring too much milk into his tea, smoothing down his tie, and adjusting his glasses. "Merlin mentioned that you've found it difficult to secure . . . gainful employment without looking the part" - Merlin had also heavily implied that Eggsy was routinely coerced into undertaking criminal activities - "and I'm very glad to oblige him. That's part of what I do, outfitting young gentlemen in bespoke suiting."

"What's the rest, then? Go all Bluebeard on 'em?" Eggsy appears to savour his reaction as much as the tea. His legs, to which his wet jeans are still valiantly clinging, stretch out to their full length to the side of Harry's chair. His toes are showing pink as a conch shell's blush through the dingy white of his tattered athletic socks.

"I don't murder the undeserving," he says as wryly as his surprise makes possible, just barely emphasising the last word, and is rewarded by the boy's bright laugh. Eggsy's lips, flushed by the heat of the tea, are disarmingly rosy.

"Merlin woulda caught you if you'd even thought about it," Eggsy agrees. There's evidently a bit of hero-worship going on there; it's nothing to do with him, but Harry approves, as Merlin would be an ideal father figure for a boy so wretchedly alone. "Nah, but all them suits cost the earth, innit? I ain't letting him pay my way."

"Dear boy," Harry starts, then backtracks, caught on the last conversational thread. "Have you read the Perrault fairy tales in their entirety?"

"Got a little sister, don't I?" He starts to reach for a second madeleine but curls his fingers against the impulse. "I can work for the suit, pay you back that way."

Charmed against his will by the boy's independence as well as his naïveté - _Kingsman by Harry Hart_ provides a gentleman's complete wardrobe, not merely a single talismanic suit - Harry puts two more madeleines on Eggsy's saucer. "I could use an assistant," he hears himself saying - lying, really, because part of the cachet of his personal stamp on a young man is the recognition that he has chosen to make time for that man; Harry takes and makes all appointments himself, seeing at most a few clients a year. An assistant will only disrupt the serene and confidential tête-à-tête he establishes with each client.

But Merlin's boy, for whom his best friend pleaded, is smiling at him; it is too late to amend or take back his words. 

"Yeah? What you need?" Eggsy asks, curious and hopeful, and both the ungrammatical query and the subsequent slurp of tea make Harry feel the full weight of the task he's just taken on.

* * *

"He's living in the flat above the shop?" Michael asks. Harry knows Michael's genuinely seeking clarification, not being a shit - that's the prerogative of his so-called better half - but he flushes nonetheless, because he's such a soft touch for Merlin. Thank god the man himself has yet to make an appearance; Harry does not need to hear Merlin's crowing to know how unpleasant it will sound. Michael's face broadcasts his every feeling, and just now he looks highly dubious. "Eggsy is very beautiful, but I hadn't thought you were looking, not since James."

"You know Eggsy?" Harry asks, leaving aside all other implications and not ready to touch the subject of James with a ten-foot pole. Eggsy is attractive, Harry acknowledges, now that his bruising has faded into insignificance, but it is a surprise to hear Michael, whose paid work involves staring at world-renowned beauties for hours on end, use such superlatives to describe the gum-chewing boy whose youth is such that he whistles as he arranges fabric samples in the showroom before catching himself and looking like he expects his plum assignment to be whisked away from him without a moment's notice.

"Of course I know him - Harry, have you never heard how we met him?" Michael asks, uncorking a bottle of velvety red the hue of a _Fountainea nobilis_ 's wings.

There's a shuffling at the door and Harry watches Michael's face light up as he heads into the foyer to unlock and open the oak door. "Why don't you ever let yourself in?" Michael scolds gently as he smiles.

"And deprive myself of seeing your face first thing when I get home?" Merlin's voice rumbles and Harry feels a pang somewhere in the vicinity of his cynical heart. Even as close as he came with James - that is, not particularly close at all - he's never found a way to match the sincerity and depth of feeling Michael and Merlin share.

"Harry's here," Michael informs his fiancé, and Merlin snorts and says, "Well, I didn't think that was your ridiculously self-indulgent cologne I was smelling on you." It's an argument that they've had many times, Merlin too stubborn to admit that good scotch - let alone cologne - could be fairly priced at hundreds of pounds per bottle, and Harry intractable that his customised scent was worth every penny. Merlin's impatience for the entire project had been immense from the beginning, and he flatly declined to opine on what scents Harry's skin wore well, from fig to vanilla, from cedar to chypre.

Just to make him pay, Harry swans into the foyer, wafting enough air that Merlin can't help smelling him - heart-notes of clove and amber above leather and lavender - in all his fragrant glory. Merlin wrinkles his nose and narrows his eyes, only stopping his ridiculous face-pulling when Michael catches him round the shoulders and kisses the side of his neck.

"Harry, you pest," Michael says amiably, "let him off his feet before you start making his life difficult." Harry smiles sunnily and silently declines to move out of the way. "It's like you _want_ me to tell him."

Harry's heard enough of Michael's gentle threats to beat a hasty retreat, but Merlin perceptibly perks up, blast the pair of them. "Tell me what?"

"Eggsy's living at Harry's," Michael lies without a flicker. He might look like an ageless Botticelli angel, but he is evil enough to have found a soulmate in Merlin, so Harry really should stop being surprised when Michael embroiders the truth.

"Over the showroom," Harry corrects hastily, in case Merlin is feeling particularly protective. He's done nothing wrong - he hadn't even meant to offer the wretched boy a bed - but when Eggsy had declined the loan of so much as an umbrella, on the grounds that his stepfather would relieve him of anything that looked even slightly expensive, there had been nothing else for it. Harry was neither about to let Eggsy swim home in a downpour nor allow his favourite umbrella with the malacca handle to be seized by a cretin. "And only occasionally, when it's best for him to be away from his stepfather." He has tried to make it clear that Eggsy is to consider the upstairs flat his own, but Eggsy - as if he has been coached by Merlin on how to be as exasperating as possible - turns sublimely deaf at such moments. "You were about to tell me how you met the boy," he reminds Michael, neatly redirecting the conversation.

For reasons he cannot fathom, Merlin's expressive face darkens and he excuses himself to change his clothes. Michael looks after him with soft eyes. "I was hoping to tell you before he came home. He doesn't like being reminded of it." Harry hums and sets about decanting the wine. "Do you remember when I had my accident?"

Nearly twenty years ago, that must have been, but Harry can still remember how heavily disappointment had sat in his stomach when neither Merlin nor Michael was at the airport to welcome him back from Barcelona and rag him about the hitch in his step from a holiday fling's vigour. Ricardo, that was his name, all dark eyes and teasing smirk and long cock. When he'd finally gone round to discover the meaning of their unprecedented absence, a neighbour had told him he'd find them at hospital, and his heart had leapt into his throat. The sight of Michael bloodied and bruised with his limbs in casts, and Merlin hollow-eyed with anxiety, had done nothing to coax his heart back to its rightful place. "Yes," he says, clipped.

"It was all of eighteen years ago," Michael says soothingly, running a hand up and down his arm, wrinkling the fabric of his pristine lavender shirt, "but thank you for still being so upset about it. I was walking, you remember, and an intoxicated driver steered his car onto the pavement." Harry nods to indicate that this much of the story is familiar, but he fails to see how Eggsy could be involved. Eighteen years ago the boy would have been but a toddler. "A man pushed me out of the way and was struck himself. That was Eggsy's father, Lee Unwin. He died in the hospital bed next to mine, holding Eggsy's hand."

Lee Unwin had been terribly brave and terribly foolish. Harry owes him so much, for sparing Michael's life, for doing the same for Merlin's sanity. "Merlin's tried to do what he can for Eggsy, but Michelle, his mother, can't see us as anything but the ones who cost her her first husband."

Harry's tone is acid. "Surely the driver would be the better target for her ire." He already dislikes her, simply for staying married to a man who beats Eggsy and makes Merlin worry, and hearing of her decades-long stupidity is only confirming his opinion.

"He didn't even stop, and no one thought to chase him down, so we don't know who it was," Michael says quietly. "No more of this," he adds when Merlin's footsteps on the stairs are once again audible. "Pour the wine, Harry, while I get the turbot ready."

*

"Mr. Hart," Eggsy says, laying out the silk ties in pleasing patterns, and Harry turns to look at him. The boy has a good eye for colour and evidently appreciates the sensuousness of the fabric between his fingers, but he still has not got used to his working apparel. He keeps unconsciously fidgeting, trying to get the stiff collar to cease scraping against his neck. Eggsy is Merlin's heir in terms of stubbornness; though he grudgingly acknowledges that a suit is a necessity for the job, he has refused to accept a bespoke suit before his labour has paid for it. Completely ignorant of how much one costs, he continues to consider a single bespoke suit that Harry will design for him as his ultimate reward. Eggsy's pride is all very well, but Harry wishes the boy would understand how deeply seeing an off-the-peg suit within the walls of Kingsman cuts into his very soul.

"Yes, Eggsy?"

"Is this . . . is this how you go on with the gents you kit out?" Even Eggsy seems confused by his phrasing, as if he meant to ask one thing and ended with another.

Thinking before speaking is one of Harry's tenets, and he honestly has no idea what Eggsy is implying with his question, so he pauses and finally offers, "Would you like to see examples of my work?"

Eggsy nods eagerly, and Harry fetches the proper album from his office. Sitting at the table in the kitchenette, he lays the album in front of Eggsy. There are full-colour photographs of each impeccably groomed man in a number of different suits on every page. "These photographs illustrate the variety and flexibility of the gentleman's wardrobe," Harry enthuses. There are so many decisions to make on colours and textures and patterns, and how best to express a man's personality through his apparel. "Single-breasted, double-breasted, waistcoat, slim-cut, notched lapels, Milanese buttonholes, all must be considered for a gentleman to be properly attired." Eggsy is barely attending, too busy flipping through the pages of the album on his lap; at that speed, what details can he possibly hope to take in? "And then there are decisions to be made regarding fabrics," he says, allowing some of his disapproval to colour his tone, just as a test.

Eggsy looks up quickly. "Yes, sir, suppose so," he says, but there is a pin-scratch frown between his brows as he looks back down. Harry steals a glance and recognises the photograph of Laurence in a grey checked suit with a pale blue tie - the exact shade of a _Polyommatus coridon_ \- lending a dashing splash of colour. There is nothing objectionable in that, surely, and Harry remembers that the colours had done much for the man, who'd been used to choosing hues that made him look sallow. The width of his lapels gave the illusion of a pleasingly broad chest. All in all, Laurence had been one of his better clients, effecting a dramatic transformation and being effusive in his gratitude.

"What is it, Eggsy?"

"You made all these suits?"

"I discerned the personality of each client and then designed a wardrobe customised to him," Harry says proudly, gesturing at all of the fabric samples and accessories lining the walls and adorning the small tables. "I employ actual tailors to do the cutting and stitching." His designs have provided polish to royalty and scions, and the time he takes with lessons and consultations is evident in the perfection of their dress and manner.

"Mm-hmm," Eggsy agrees, but he still sounds dissatisfied. Harry hopes that Eggsy never plays cards for money, because his tells are ludicrously easy to spot. He flexes his feet when he bites back a comment he wants to make, perhaps as a way to ready himself to run once he's delivered himself of his cheek. The shoes he's wearing - also ready-made instead of hand-stitched bespoke, as if he cares nothing for the tears on Harry's pillow at the very thought - slip a little at the movement. Once Eggsy had realised that nothing in the showroom was actually for sale, he'd looked vastly irritated by what he evidently considered waste and said he'd outfit himself from the samples in order to look the part. He chose the plainest suit and shirt he could find, and Harry considers Eggsy lucky that his colouring is so absurdly flattered by the stark black and white; he is equally to be congratulated that the skinny tie and slim-cut suit look proper on him, since he has no need of any chest-broadening _trompe l'oeil_.

Harry allows himself a refreshing eyeroll but makes sure to keep his tone light. " _What_ , Eggsy?"

Eggsy, biting his lip, looks up at him. Before Harry can chide him for such a graceless gesture, he blurts out, "What, they all have the same personality, then?"

"I beg your pardon?" He flips through the album - Felix in navy blue, Trevor in black, George in brown, Benedict in pinstripes, Rupert in windowpane - and sees a dazzling variety. Eggsy simply does not understand all of the nuances. Perhaps he should also have brought his sketchpads, to show Eggsy how he painstakingly crafts the proper silhouette and details for each suit. 

He glances up and sees that Eggsy, with a dash of scarlet on his cheeks like the spots of a _Mimoides euryleon_ , is looking away. He takes the opportunity to peruse more carefully. Eggsy most likely did not mean to criticise; proper British tailoring allows for a fairly limited range of colours and styles that an untutored boy raised on garish athletic gear and three-to-a-pack pants cannot appreciate. And Harry will also grant that there is some similarity in the men themselves - of course there must be, given that the overlap between those who can afford his services and those who understand their necessity is quite small. "I see what you mean -" he starts, intending to be conciliatory in order to educate.

Eggsy, evidently too relieved by the admission to censor himself, bursts out, "Sorry, not my place to say, Mr. Hart. Ain't like it's your fault only weak-chinned wankers pale as milk who all have the same haircut hired you, sir." Eggsy smiles politely and stands, tucking his chair neatly in. When Harry says nothing, he heads back to the front of the showroom to rearrange the window display.

Harry sits, stunned by such an accurate description, though he's never put it in those terms before. Eggsy is certainly full of surprises.

*

Harry's managing a rather wry tone in his recitation of the incident - over potted chicken with herbs and Merlin's beloved rumbledethumps, two completely disparate dishes that Harry's cool beaujolais unites into a proper meal - but the story still has Merlin roaring with knowing laughter. "Told you the lad was sharp. Not one of those wankers was worth your time."

He can't very well argue that Merlin shouldn't judge books by their covers, not when he fashioned those covers himself, but it does rankle. Merlin is looking monstrously smug as he shovels the so-called cuisine of his blasted people into his mouth and Michael is making not a peep in protest at the very poor table manners on display. Harry has no desire to end up with cabbage in his eyebrows _again_ and so keeps his judgement silent.

"How is he doing otherwise?" Michael asks, topping off all three glasses of wine.

"Well enough," Harry admits. Eggsy has taken to all of the shopkeeping tasks of colour sorting and fabric selection with an aplomb surprising in one to whom couture is clearly a closed book. He has been a very apt pupil when Harry dusted off his lectures on world history and modern politics, organised on the principle that a gentleman should have such information at his fingertips so that he can be thoroughly informed and impart that knowledge in turn. "He soaks up information like a sponge, actually."

The pride on their faces is worth the admission, and Harry takes his last bite of buttery chicken. The smiles Michael and Merlin exchange are sweet enough that Harry needs to drain his glass just for the acidic spike of wine. "What's new with you both?"

"I've found my next subject," Michael says, eyes alight. "Team GB's golden archer."

"Roxanne Morton?" Harry asks, surprised. Merlin, to whom this is apparently old news, is shamelessly rooting around the salad bowl for all of the tomatoes dressed in Harry's champagne vinaigrette. "She wants her portrait done?" He's frankly astonished that she doesn't have one already, given how the press had fallen all over themselves to compare the hue of her hair and the splendour of her pedigree to the colour of the medal she'd won at the Olympics. 

"She's acceding to her parents' wishes as far as getting a portrait done goes, but she's asked to be able to choose the artist herself," Merlin interjects, sitting back with a satisfied sigh. "Lass likes Michael's work."

"Which, specifically?" Harry asks, curious. Michael's policy has been to alternate painting one portrait of someone with pots of money, just to fill his coffers, and then one canvas entirely for his own interest, which tends to drain said coffers quite efficiently. A stray thought - whether Michael has ever painted Eggsy - darts into his mind. Harry has a drawerful of sketches Michael has done of him and Merlin, quick and vigorous lines making the likenesses look much more finished than they actually are.

"The ones I enjoyed painting most," Michael says, which probably means the umpteen portraits of Merlin, though some are disguised by abstraction. "She wrote very nicely to ask if I'd meet her and consider her request."

Harry approves of such awareness that an artist's time is not to be commanded merely by money, though he is a touch surprised that Ms. Morton, who has been denied nothing since her triumphant return to these shores, understands so much. Perhaps the girl has availed herself of some service similar to Kingsman, only pitched at females. It is not a subject that has ever interested him much. "Good of her," he says after too long a pause. "I suppose that any portrait by Michael Percival of this so-called 'national treasure' will have to be on loan to the NPG for some time?"

"Yes," Merlin says, fairly bursting with pride, and Michael directs that smile that gladdens his whole face toward his fiancé. Harry approves of that smile for its power to silence Merlin for hours at a time but disavows it too because he's never once felt so illuminated by anyone's presence as to have his feelings writ across his face.

He can never quite decide which of them is the luckier, Merlin or Michael, for having the other, but he knows he must count himself luckiest of all, that they've kept him so much a part of their lives. They can do very well without a third wheel, after all.

* * *

Harry wakes early - or, rather, acknowledges at some indecent hour of the morning that he's not going to find sleep at all - and lies in bed, dissatisfied. He needs to find someone, either a new client or a new lover, to dispel this vague restlessness, this gnawing feeling that his life is too small to hold him. 

Watching the dawn break against the champagne-coloured walls of his bedroom, he thinks idly of putting up a different wallpaper, giving himself a new view. He draws his hand down his bared abdomen, ready to delve into his pyjama trousers and pants, but gives it up as a bad job before even starting; he's not in the mood for a wank, and that's what tips the scales in favour of a new client rather than a new man to warm his bed. James had come and gone nearly a year ago, and Harry hasn't missed him.

If he's awake, he might as well get up and start his day. Eggsy's industrious fingers have obviated the need for cleaning the showroom, which is precisely the kind of mindless task he needs just now. His own house is kept in pristine, if crowded, order by a tyrannical cleaning service that he doesn't dare to cross. Ah, but the flat above the showroom has been neither dusted nor swept for a few weeks - unless Eggsy has chosen to employ his petty-crime skills in the liberation of feather duster and dustpan from their place in the showroom's storage closet - and is in need of his care.

The walk to the showroom is quick and brisk, the last of the dawn's pinkness making the very pavement look unwontedly rosy. The door to the flat is closed and Harry realises Eggsy might well have availed himself of the space last night; the boy could be sleeping in there at that very moment. Oddly, he can picture it quite clearly: Eggsy, sprawled across the mattress, the ivory sheets rucked at his bare waist, smiling faintly in his sleep. Startling the boy out of his rest is not on, but neither is waiting for the door to what might very well be an empty room to open. Rather than knock, Harry gently turns the doorknob.

The room is empty, and Harry is surprised by how fresh it smells after months of being shut up and then weeks of sporadic habitation until he sees that Eggsy's got the windows in both the bedroom and the en-suite open. The bedroom itself is clearly in use but also quite neatly kept. Eggsy's oxfords are next to the door, still shining because the boy wears his detested uniform only in the showroom. The bed is made, lumpy but serviceable, and there is a thick paperback on one of the nightstands. Curious, he steps forward to pick it up. It's a _Complete Sherlock Holmes_ with the original _Strand_ illustrations; he'll have to remember to use Eggsy's interest in Victoriana, detective fiction, and _milk-drinking snakes_ when it comes time to coach him in the kind of bright, disinterested chatter bandied about at cocktail parties. 

Harry looks down and sees the outlet behind the stand has a mobile charger plugged into it, the loose end of the cord coiled inside the drawer. Tucked carefully away next to it are Eggsy's treasures. There's a military portrait of a man - it must be Lee Unwin, as there's no mistaking the jaw he passed on to his son - and a few snaps of a little girl with dark blonde curls. That must be the sister Eggsy's mentioned. Half-sister, going by her age. Harry knows nothing about children but would guess her to be somewhere between five and eight.

The handsome carved wardrobe that he found on holiday in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is nearly empty. There's an open pack of blue boxer-briefs on the top shelf - his guess was wrong, as they come five to a pack, not three - and another of thick black athletic socks, which indicates that Eggsy has no idea how to select shoes that actually fit his feet. There's also a pair of loose sleep-trousers in a black-and-yellow plaid pattern that must be dreadfully unflattering. The hangers bear the weight of Eggsy's black suit and one of the two white shirts Eggsy consented to take, the latter with the black tie - still knotted - looped around the collar. Harry gives up looking for anything that actually reflects Eggsy's personality and stalks into the bathroom. 

There's a toothbrush and a rolled-up tube of toothpaste in the cup by the sink, and a small Boots bag with travel-sized toiletries hanging from the doorknob. Inside the shower stall is the other white shirt, washed and left to drip dry. Harry is nearly positive that he told Eggsy to avail himself of the dry-cleaning service he uses for the showroom, but the sight of that shirt makes him doubt his own memory. He turns away and something clatters to the tile floor. It's a pocket comb, and Harry cannot help comparing the cheap plastic with the pair of silver-backed brushes with which he battles his absurd curls each morning; they sit on top of his own dresser, part of his grandfather's grooming set that was passed down to him with all due ceremony on his twenty-first.

It's . . . depressing, is what it is. It's the living quarters of one used to taking up as little space as possible, used to making do with cheap and shoddy, forced to keep his treasures few and portable. He wonders if Eggsy has that same feeling - that his life is too small for him - that's been gnawing at him lately.

In any case, the boy deserves better. Perhaps he should do more to make his life easier. Eggsy is probably desperate for company other than Harry's own. Harry resolves to select a new client, one Eggsy's age, a potential friend for the boy. And what the hell - he might as well find himself a man too, one who can fuck the dissatisfaction right out of him.

*

"This is -" Eggsy says, for the third time. Evidently he has no words to describe their destination; it is rather charming, his wide-eyed wonder, and Harry, though he knows the curve of the spiral staircase by heart, has to take it slowly lest he slip and land at Eggsy's oxfords. Eggsy smiles up at him as he takes the last steps and Harry smiles back. If he'd known that the boy was so ready to be pleased, he'd have brought him to the perfumers long before the level of his own scent dipped unacceptably low in the bottle.

He's always rather liked the aesthetic of the place, both futuristic and traditional, like an apothecary in a spaceship. "Come along, Eggsy," he says, leading the way to the back. "Your signature scent awaits." Of course, what actually awaits is Jasper, who is less subtle than he thinks in winking at Harry to indicate his understanding that the price of having a bespoke scent is not to be mentioned in front of Eggsy, simply billed to Harry later. Eggsy is still too excited to have noticed the wink; good, let him think that this is just an affectation of the wealthy and it will set Harry back no more than a container of that foul "body spray" that surely poisons the air of the estates.

"Welcome, Mr. Hart, Mr. Unwin," Jasper says, rather giving the game away by knowing Eggsy's name, but really the battle's been won by Eggsy's very presence in the store, so Harry lets it pass. Jasper steps into the back room to fetch pure scents for sampling; by the time he's returned with the tray, Eggsy has been distracted by the bottle with a magnificent stag's-head stopper in solid silver, set to one side in anticipation of his visit.

"Yes, that's mine," Harry says, murmuring low in his ear and Eggsy turns, his bright face unexpectedly close to Harry's. "I created it a few years ago, a variation of the scent I first started wearing decades ago. As skin ages and grows less firm, fragrance clings all the more readily, and so a subtler scent is desirable."

Eggsy's eyes, so very green just then, peer at his face. Matter-of-factly, he says, "Nah, you ain't got nothin' to change for. You could pass for younger'n you are." He turns to look again at the bottle. "Can I smell it?"

"Certainly. In the bottle and on the skin, the better to appreciate the changes body chemistry makes," Harry says readily, reaching for the stopper to let the scent hit the air. Eggsy dips his head to sniff directly from the bottle rather than wafting the fragrance over, and Harry catches himself thinking that Eggsy needs to be taught how to use his senses - it's enough to make an oenophile cry. He is unprepared to have Eggsy's nose at the hinge of his jaw next, to hear the pleased hum Eggsy makes without seeming to be aware; the boy is a sensualist, though an untutored one. Eggsy, Harry realises belatedly, is wearing no scent at all, and he remembers that all of the toiletries he found in the upstairs flat were unscented, bought new as if Eggsy hadn't dared to introduce a scent he likes into the cloistered hush of the Kingsman showroom. Harry should have -

They both startle when Jasper clears his throat pointedly. "As you'll note, Mr. Unwin, Mr. Hart's scent is daytime-appropriate."

Eggsy's eyes are rounder that they need to be. "What you wear for a night out, then, Mr. Hart?"

Jasper evidently appreciates being given such a clear cue. "This," he says, producing a bottle with a flourish. He lifts the golden stag's-head stopper and wafts the scent toward Eggsy, who shuts his eyes appreciatively. "It's stronger, the original scent Mr. Hart developed here on his first visit to our establishment."

"Bet that brings 'em flocking," Eggsy says and Harry allows a small smile to play on his lips.

"Would you prefer a daytime or a nighttime scent, sir?" Jasper asks.

"Versatile," Harry answers when it becomes clear that Eggsy, discomfited by being addressed as _sir_ , cannot conceive of the question's being directed at him.

"Very good," Jasper says immediately, and draws the tray forward so that they can begin.

*

Merlin, the blasted hypocrite, professes to love Eggsy's new scent, keeping an arm around him long after it needs to be there; Eggsy, smiling, looks happy tucked up against Merlin's side. Harry, feeling vaguely offended, stalks off to the kitchen to help Michael put the finishing touches on their dinner. Michael swears he's got the rabbit in mustard done and all Harry needs to do is butter the noodles and give the honey vinaigrette a good shake and pour it over the salad.

When they emerge and all of the food is on the table, Eggsy steps as easily into Michael's embrace, smiling and turning his head obligingly as Michael identifies the various notes of the scent. "Salt," Michael says definitively, "unless I've been in the kitchen too long."

"Sea salt, yeah," Eggsy corroborates, ducking his head.

"Honey," Merlin pipes up. "And something else sweet."

"Myrrh," Harry says, with a quelling look at Merlin, who keeps smiling in an irritatingly knowing way; what he's trying to imply, Harry has no idea or interest. "Not sweet, precisely, but precious." That prompts another round of conspiratorial smiles, and he's glad to see that Eggsy looks as bewildered as he feels.

"And?" Michael asks. "I'm missing something major. Darling, do you know?"

Harry steps in before Eggsy, smelling of the scent he'd concocted to match his personality - both sweetly domestic and spiced as a summer storm - can be passed around again from one darling to the other. "It's ozone. Let's eat." 

"Yes, sir," Eggsy says, automatically, and Merlin hoots derisively. 

"This reprobate has you dressing like an undertaker and calling him 'sir,' does he, Eggsy lad?" Merlin asks, piling noodles high on Eggsy's plate. "I could tell you tales of this one that would make your hair curl."

Eggsy grins, and Harry takes back everything nice he's ever said about Merlin in front of this impressionable boy. "Don't need a perm, guv, and Mr. Hart's been very kind." Harry is both intensely grateful that his foibles will not get another airing in Merlin's unsparing narration and also rather curious about what exactly his undeserving best friend would have revealed. "Cheers, Michael," Eggsy says as his plate is loaded down with rabbit. "Still a growing boy." 

Harry, filling the salad plates with greens and sliced strawberries and almonds, doesn't like being distanced by a formality that evidently precludes such easy teasing. "Call me Harry," he says abruptly.

"Thank you, Harry," Eggsy says, docilely enough, but saves his cheekiness for his appreciative hosts. Harry stabs into his salad with a touch more force than is necessary. He doesn't even have a glass of lovely wine to comfort him; Merlin fills all of their glasses with some ridiculous non-alcoholic beverage. Its tart fizz pairs well enough with the meal, Harry admits, but he fails to see the necessity of such deprivation - Eggsy is not underage and he has given his friends wines for every palate, as Merlin had never bothered to develop one.

Michael and Merlin keep up the teetotaller act even after dinner. Instead of a proper port or brandy, Merlin offers tea with such a quelling eye that Harry's protest dies on his tongue.

Eggsy, charmingly, offers to make it and, under their hosts' watchful gazes, adds twice as much milk as Harry would to his cup. He's been doing that since he watched Harry mistakenly do so that first day, when Harry had been too disconcerted by the bruises swallowing half of Eggsy's face to know what his hands were doing. He should have spoken up then, but he hadn't wanted to discourage Eggsy out of a courtesy honed by attentiveness, and in any case the result is hardly undrinkable. He might even be growing to like the taste. Or at least he _was_ before he caught the look on Merlin's terrible, expressive face.

He casts his eyes down in time to see that Eggsy, when he has the run of the kitchen as he evidently does here, puts honey in his tea rather than sugar. He'll have to remember to buy a jar of honey for the boy and keep only as much milk as he himself needs in the kitchenette, as Eggsy eschews it. "Oh!" Eggsy says suddenly. "Almost forgot, I brought a treat for after."

Harry, full of properly cooked food and whatever that non-alcoholic swill was, clutches his milky tea closer and resolves to politely decline. Eggsy should not be spending money on the three of them in any case. When he looks back up, Eggsy is grinning impertinently at Merlin's mock frown and telling him, "It's just for me an' Michael, then, if you're gonna be fussy." Harry snorts at the face Merlin pulls then, marvelling at how shameless he must be to be pouting at his age. "Yes, fine, I got the milk instead of dark," Eggsy relents. "But it's Michael's turn to break."

Harry's curious now. Eggsy produces a chocolate orange and hands it over to Michael, who opens the box with all due ceremony, hoists the sphere, and brings it sharply down on the heavy table. After he unwraps it, Merlin is the first to reach in, pushing one slice between Michael's smiling lips and taking the second for himself. Eggsy snags two as well, handing one over to Harry, who is slow to take it. Eggsy's smile is replaced by a tentative frown. "Have you had one before, Mr. - Harry?" he asks, and Harry is struck by the boy's evident image of him as someone too aristocratic to have heard of a treat that makes his two best friends happy. 

"Yes, I'm quite fond of them," he lies, wondering why being thought of as part of the idle rich - distinct from his friends, whose work and home Eggsy knows well - stings so harshly. He keeps his eyes fixed on Eggsy's relieved face rather than either of his friends' disbelieving stares.

*

Harry wakes after another restless night. Pettishly, he kicks away the smothering soft weight of duvet and sheets and stands at the window, convinced that he can smell a storm coming. But peering up through the panes shows him a sky untroubled by clouds, the hue of a perfect _Polyommatus bellargus_ , Adonis blue. 

Eggsy, sounding drunk from the heady air of the perfumers, had asked for this day off - asked cautiously as if his hours had to be meticulously accounted for, else his bespoke prize might come without lapels or some such, which was enough to make Harry feel like a heel - on their way to dinner last night, and Harry finds it in himself to be pleased for the boy to have such a glorious day in which to play hooky. Stung anew by the memory of the implicit comparison Eggsy had made between him and the workers of the world, Harry decides to prepare for his next client by refamiliarising himself with what's on offer at the V&A.

He doesn't bother with much of a breakfast - he's only ever ravenous after he's been ravished the night before - and contents himself with a few slices of toast with cherry conserve and a pot of tea prepared with the proper amount of milk.

The museum is an easy half-mile walk away, but he forgot to account for the unexpected fineness of the weather as a lure to all of the denizens of the city, and he gets caught up in the crush of people milling between the V&A and the Natural History Museum and pouring out of all of the exits of the South Kensington tube stop. At last he's in the cool interior of the museum, alone insofar as he's not part of the crowd consulting the maps on the wall; he knows just where he's going. The Cast Courts always soothe his soul, reminding him of the holidays he's taken to the four corners of the world. Standing at the base of the replica of Michelangelo's _David_ , next to one of the delicately veined and oversized feet, he can look straight up and recall not just David but Paolo as well; the full view up from foot to thigh to cock to nipple to face is staggeringly beautiful. He had enjoyed the flesh version tremendously for three endless days.

A coachload of tourists armed with cameras chases him out of the quiet square of light and space, and he makes his way up the steps, turns the corner, and finds Eggsy.

He's pointing toward the steps Harry just ascended and looking down and to his right, where a small girl has her hand locked tightly around his. "Mr. Hart!" he says when he looks around.

"Harry," Harry reminds him. The boy has a rather skilled and very beautiful rendering of an _Apatura iris_ on his cheek, the Purple emperor such a deep indigo that it strips the green out of his eyes and leaves them purely, liquidly blue.

"Nah, you gotta be Mr. Hart to meet my sister," Eggsy says, giving the girl's arm a little teasing shake. "Daisy, say hi to Mr. Hart."

"Hi to Mr. Hart," Daisy says impishly. At least her name makes sense of the painting on her cheek - a lavishly petalled light pink gerbera daisy - but he's still bewildered by the artist's depicting a famously bloodthirsty butterfly on Eggsy.

"Hello, Daisy," he says. Gesturing at his own cheek, he asks, "What fashion have I apparently missed?"

Eggsy smiles. "Girl outside the Natural History Museum, set up in the sunshine, said she'd do me - do us for free cause we were first in line. Studying bugs, I think."

"Certainly not botany," Harry agrees, as no daisy he's seen has a sky-blue carpel to match the colour of a child's eyes.

"She said she was a mologist," Daisy announces. "And that Eggsy is pretty."

Harry is not going to become a scold and correct the child on both points, though he hears Michael's voice saying _Eggsy is very beautiful_. "Your entomologist is correct, as Eggsy is quite pretty." Especially now, when he's blushing pink as the flower on his sister's cheek and not knowing where to look other than at his own feet.

Daisy is looking at him with narrowed eyes, though whether it's because he's praising her brother or not praising her is unclear. "You could go get a big bug on your face," she points out, edging between them and clinging to Eggsy's strong thigh; he gets the impression that she is making a wish as much as a statement.

"I haven't yet finished my tour around this museum," he says. "What brings you both here?"

"We're reading _Ballet Shoes_ now, innit, and this one just had to see the dolls' houses in the Victoria and Albert." Eggsy shrugs sheepishly as Harry's shaking his head. "Didn't realise they weren't here in the main museum these days, so I'll have to take my princess to look at jewels to make up for it." Daisy's starting to wiggle restively, and Eggsy says, "Got to go, it seems. See you tomorrow."

Harry watches after them, hand-in-hand again, as they go and decides to get a bit lost himself. Wandering through a few less than enthralling exhibitions, he finds himself in the Theatre & Performance rooms, and there, in pride of place above Shakespeare's First Folio, is Eggsy.

Only not Eggsy, of course, though the painting could very well be one of Michael's oil portraits of one of his favourite people. Harry is oddly short of breath as he bends to read the description. [_Oil painting of Richard Burton as Henry V, by Frank Owen Salisbury_](http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O135106/richard-burton-as-henry-v-oil-painting-salisbury-frank-owen/#) the plaque says, but if Harry has ever envisioned Eggsy in medieval garb, this painting is that vision come to life. He straightens up, feeling absurdly like he was just offering obeisance to a monarch instead of bent low to read a poorly positioned caption, and backs away, but his eyes keep returning to that captivating portrait.

*

He's back home earlier than he'd planned - visiting a museum is usually an all-day excursion, with a proper lunch and time to mull over what he's seen - and ransacks his desk and bookcases for his drawing materials and reference guides. Outside of designing suits for his clients, he's got out of the habit of sketching much, as it's hard to take his own minor skill seriously when he counts one of the greatest living artists in the world as his best friend, but he turns up a proper sketchpad with thick, creamy leaves and his old pencils.

Hours later, the hall clock chimes midnight and his hands are covered in coloured dust. There on the page is an exquisitely detailed _Apatura iris_ , resting rather than feasting on a young man's firm and fine-grained cheek, both held taut by a dimpled smile.

The image follows him into his dreams. He cannot recollect what Eggsy had been wearing, but with that logic peculiar to dreams Eggsy seems all at once to be wearing some tearaway version of his Kingsman uniform, and Harry tugs on the tie, shortens its length by wrapping it around his fist, to draw Eggsy insistently down, down to his knees, down to Harry's waiting mouth, and then Harry is the one feasting on this boy's firm flesh, baring him and savouring the taste of him on his tongue, and Eggsy is watching wide-eyed but without writhing, without relishing, and Harry needs to wreck that dispassion, to turn him inside out, to show Eggsy how good he can feel, and the Purple emperor peels itself free from Eggsy's cheek and Eggsy watches it go with mournful eyes, watches it dart into Harry's mouth, and then at last he smiles and comes and floods Harry's throat, and Harry is swallowing around the fluttering and the deluge, and Eggsy holds his head firmly in place and traces the movement of wings in Harry's throat with his thumbs and -

Harry wakes on the floor, having apparently managed to hurl himself off his bed and past the William Morris rug whilst still entangled in his stiflingly soft sheets. He peels the sodden cocoon away with movements as precise as his muddled limbs will allow, then strips himself as well and pulls on his red dressing-gown. Though he's always held that a full English is a Victorian prank that went awry and was unaccountably taken seriously decades later, his stomach is clamouring for eggs and beans and sausages and toast and bacon. Cooking will at least work the last of the jitters out of his body.

He might feel as though he's come hard enough to be drained dry, but he has to remember that it was all concocted by his feverish brain and that the facts are simple: he cannot have Eggsy. He cracks two eggs into a pan alongside two rashers of bacon and tries to apply logic. Michael and Merlin clearly love Eggsy like their own child, and they know quite well that Harry has never wanted a permanent partner - he's been happy, flitting from man to man as his fancy leads him, a butterfly in human shape as Merlin once growled disparagingly at him. Eggsy might be beautiful and bright, but he has the two best guards his virtue could possibly muster. So Harry will forget the shocking pleasure of his dream, preemptively decline before he can have and tire of the boy, and that will be that.

* * *

Giles Hesketh had been one of Harry's better flings, all iron cock and absolutely no brain - the ideal playmate for a dirty weekend turned dirty fortnight, two young men with devilry to spare. Though Harry never seduces his clients and the idea of letting himself be seduced by one is frankly risible, it is as much the headshot as the surname that makes him choose Charles Hesketh as his next client; as the photograph indicates that Giles's pouting mouth was passed on to his son, the mere sight of it should be enough to distract Harry from the shy curve of Eggsy's infrequent smile. 

Because he is still looking at Eggsy, weeks after he told himself to stop. He has had no demonstrable success in simply willing himself into ignorance of Eggsy's many attractions, has been tormented by nightly dreams - Eggsy's fist crumpling his luxurious sheets, Eggsy's petal-soft mouth falling open in pleasure, Eggsy's thick cock freshly slicked and ready to be put to the use Harry craves - of the boy who's glued to his side day after day. The air in the showroom now smells of their two scents, and the combination is delicious.

On paper, too, Charles is ideal: within two years of Eggsy's age, just enough money to need to deploy it strategically rather than spend it lavishly, breeding proper enough to ensure that he'd appreciate and be enhanced by the Kingsman polish. He's even got dark curls and slim height; he's close enough in looks to Harry that Harry won't have to think in order to clothe him to his best advantage, and in fact he would perfectly suit the green windowpane check Harry's been hoarding for ages.

Charles could well be a peer and possible friend for Eggsy, whose social circle, as far as Harry can see, comprises himself, two other old men, and the world's most demanding seven-year-old, to whose pleasure Eggsy slavishly devotes himself and virtually all his spare hours. He contacts Charles to accept him as a client and they agree that the showroom at eleven the following day will suit them for an initial meeting.

Harry hates him on sight.

Well, perhaps it takes all of five minutes - minutes that Charles occupies by specifying his lineage ("Mother's a Sheldrake, Father's the eldest son," and Harry longs to say that Giles's salient feature is a mouth like a hoover), implying that his presence at Kingsman is due solely to a need to impress his wealthy godfather, and insulting Eggsy. It is most likely that last that makes Harry ready to boot him out on his bony backside, but Eggsy turns to him with a demeanour so carefully unruffled that it stays his hand.

"Who are you, then, the hired help?" Charles asks.

Harry watches as a spark of mischief lights Eggsy's eyes. "Yes, sir. Unwin."

"Couldn't even find you togs that fit properly," Charles says, turning away, and Harry sees a flush rise along Eggsy's slim neck, where his shirt collar gapes a little. "Don't know why people set such store by this place anyway."

Well, one of the lessons Harry imparts is how to remain gracious in the face of an utter boor, and he puts it into practise now. "Mr. Unwin is in fact studying here -" he says before Eggsy's gesture stops him from continuing with a _just like you_.

"Some save-a-pleb scheme, is it? Well, if he's here, he might as well be useful. I'll have a brandy."

Eggsy is not going to be serving anybody. "Actually, Mr. Hesketh, I keep my Hors d'Age Armagnac strictly for after dinner. In my home, not my place of work. I can offer you still or sparkling water now if you are thirsty." He knows - and Eggsy must remember - that there is more than that in the kitchenette, but none of it is going to wet this little bastard's throat. Eggsy plays his part beautifully, all straight spine, minimal eye contact, and discreet nods; the boy has the makings of quite an actor.

Charles's face darkens unattractively. "Is this the type of service you run, Hart? Bloody disgrace."

"Yes, let me elaborate on the topics we will cover," Harry says smoothly. "We can begin with a grounding in world history and politics -"

"Pass," Charles says, flicking his fingers dismissively.

"It's very informative," Eggsy says, trying valiantly to help. "Mr. Hart knows -"

"What _Mr. Hart_ knows is either from a first-year lecture or the British Museum's list of bloody objects. Either way, you needn't be so impressed."

It's not quite as difficult as Harry anticipated to keep hold of his temper, because Eggsy's words, partisan though they are, betray how much of a distance the boy continues to perceive between them - he's still "Mr. Hart" rather than "Harry" or anything fonder. He pinches himself as a sharp reminder that he ought not to want Eggsy to want him back. "Very well," Harry says, "we can move ahead to small talk."

Charles laughs, meanly. "Some of your clients might need that, but I can get a leg over whenever I want. Birds love me. Don't try to get round me, Hart; I read Financial Management at university and I know to the penny how much my godfather is paying for this treatment. Most of it has to be going to the clothes, so I'll have my first measurements done now."

Arrogant little toe-rag. "As you say, Mr. Hesketh," Harry says agreeably. He's never going to do this again - he hardly needs the funds and he'll live longer if he doesn't have to interact with anyone this arsey ever again. "Please come this way." He decides to play along with Eggsy's performance. "Mr. Unwin, if you would be so good as to bring the worsted wool samples when you rejoin us."

Eggsy is going full _Remains of the Day_ , giving a slight bow. "Of course, Mr. Hart. Including the flannels?"

"If he said wool, then he most likely meant wool, not flannel," Charles snaps. "I do have a luncheon to attend."

"Flannel is made from worsted wool, sir," Harry says, all gentle reproof, confident that Charles has no idea how close he is to death by a thousand pins. "No, Mr. Unwin, just the blue, brown, and grey worsteds, if you please."

There's a pinch of a frown on Eggsy's face when he deposits the heavy sample books on the long table near the triptych of mirrors. "Here you are, sir."

"Our first priority will be a versatile suit that can be worn on most occasions. We will also make an informal suit, a summerweight suit, and a dinner suit, along with all of the necessary accompaniments and accessories," Harry tells Charles's reflection - of course the sod was already regarding himself. "You mentioned a luncheon engagement, which will preclude my taking your measurements today" - it does not, as the process takes only fifteen minutes, but he's in no mood to humour the petulant - "but we could begin to explore some of the choices to be made as to the style."

Mollified, Charles turns - a shame, since the back of him is so much better than the front - and gives what he thinks is a charming smile. Harry works up a wave of pity for the girls who have had that particular kraken unleashed on them. "Let's do."

"For my daily wear, as you see, I have chosen a double-breasted two-piece suit with peaked lapels, double vents, and a quarter break," he says, gesturing as he speaks. Eggsy is listening, but Charles is doing something on his mobile. "From the styling of my hair" - Eggsy's eyes flick up as if it has never occurred to him that Harry's hair might do anything other than lie in neatly combed and straightened lines, heavy with pomade - "to the choice of my shoes, this suit type is of a piece with my overall appearance, making a single statement."

"This is what I want," Charles says, holding out his mobile for inspection. On the screen is an image of some celebrity or other Harry cannot name; the important thing is that the man has an entirely different body type - namely impressively muscular - than Charles and, to top it off, is as bald as Merlin.

"I could not advise a shawl collar for you, Mr. Hesketh, and given your build, a structured Roman shoulder is most suitable. Depending on your hairstyle, either a notched or peaked lapel would be best." The smug brat might have height but he needs padding for those sloping shoulders.

"What, like this pleb? Can't you make anything else, then?"

"Mr. Unwin is wearing a notched lapel, yes, but as he does not require padding to make up for any narrowness of chest, his slim-cut suit does have the _spalla camicia_ shoulder. He wears it beautifully." He hadn't meant to say that, but it is the simple truth; Eggsy is gorgeous and should be told so at every opportunity.

Eggsy's mouth has fallen open and Charles's brow is lowering ominously. Before either of them can voice any kind of response, Harry says, "Come, let us choose the fabric and then we can work out the rest."

By the time Charles has both made his displeasure clear and chosen a steel-blue wool that just misses the colour of his eyes - easily his best feature since that pretty mouth is screwed up in a frown or a smirk most of the time - he has to leave for his engagement. Eggsy obligingly goes to flag down a cab, for which courtesy Charles deliberately walks over him, his shoulder clipping Eggsy's arm hard enough that the boy's pained frown returns.

"Mr. Hart," Eggsy says, before Harry releases an overly histrionic sigh to make him laugh. "Alright, Harry, then." His hand steals up to rub shyly at his hair, going from nape to crown. His hair looks soft as a fawn's coat, and Harry is desperate to touch it, to be welcomed to let his fingers run through its lushness. "I was thinking that maybe you should measure me along with Charles, if he's gonna be making comments about your work. I know this suit doesn't fit right -"

"It would be my sincere pleasure, dear boy," Harry says. "But first, let me apologise for bringing such a poor example of manhood into your orbit. He was unpardonably rude to you."

Eggsy rolls his eyes. "Wanker, that one, but it ain't like I haven't heard worse. I gotta apologise too, for thinking you were living on Easy Street when you had dickheads like that one keeping you on the hop."

Harry laughs and gestures. "Come along, then."

Eggsy colours, most fetchingly, and takes a step back. "What, now?"

"If I measure you now, you'll know what notes need to be taken when I take Charles's measurements. And the process of making a suit is a lengthy one, so there's no time like the present to get started." He's sure there's nothing in his voice to indicate how much he wants Eggsy beneath his greedy hands; perhaps the world lost two thespians when neither he nor Eggsy took that path. Something in what he said is enough to get Eggsy to step forward again.

"Nine women can't make a baby in one month?" Eggsy quotes, all cheeky delight.

"Indeed." He's heard Merlin say the same many times before, usually when it's his rare turn to make dinner and they're all waiting impatiently, stomachs growling, to demolish one of his needlessly complicated concoctions. Merlin's solved a fair few cases in the kitchen, working theories out while basting and chopping and stirring, and to his credit he's not protested much that Michael's painted him more than once as Sherlock Holmes. "Hop up."

Eggsy steps onto the small raised platform set before the mirrors and Harry locates the measuring tape looped neatly in the drawer of the long table. Positioned several inches off the floor, Eggsy is tall enough to kiss him without mercy, and Harry lets a few imagined kisses play through his libidinous mind. Oh, he would give beneath Eggsy so willingly. "Jacket off, please," he orders, then considers the gap Charles had pointed out. "Shirt as well." 

Setting his jaw grimly, Eggsy nods and obliges; the reason for his reluctance is immediately apparent. There's a heavy double bruise - possibly two fists, more likely a boot - darkening one side of his torso. "Your stepfather?" Harry asks, though he hardly needs the confirmation.

"Been on a rampage for a few days now," Eggsy says lightly. "Told ya a prick like Charles Bloody Hesketh was nothing to get your knickers in a twist over."

Eggsy is clearly trying to change the subject, but Harry, staring at the bruise, is having an epiphany, the most disconcerting epiphany of his life. What he feels for this boy is not just lust but love. He'll be damned if anyone hurts Eggsy ever again. 

He looks up. Eggsy's smiling - he'd done the same the first day they met, putting on cheer to cover his wounds - but his eyes are wary. "Is your sister safe with him?"

"Prob'ly safer than when I'm around. Dunno if it's cause she's a girl or cause he knows she's his, but he hasn't raised a hand to her. But just seein' me's enough to get him in a hitting mood, and Daisy's old enough now to understand the things he calls me, to see the bruises on me, so it's best I stay away in case he stops being so particular about who he's hurting." Eggsy's eyes fasten on his, the hopelessness in them terrible to see. His sister is the one source of pure joy in Eggsy's life, and even she is being denied him. Where the fuck is his mother in all of this?

Harry aches to do something; what is the point of having so many resources if he cannot help this downtrodden boy? "The flat above is yours, you know that, but if you do not want to be alone you are welcome to stay with me."

Eggsy looks aghast. "I ain't making you deal with me 24/7, Harry. You already done too much for me."

"Not at all." The tape twitches in his restive hands, and Eggsy looks down at it.

"Still wanna take my measurements?" he asks, trying for a hopeful smile. Harry nods, though now he wants to worship more than clutch; every touch Eggsy feels from now on should be loving. "Do you really do small-talk prep?" Eggsy asks curiously.

This time, Harry's content to let his change of subject occur; the boy must want to move on. "Of course. Small talk is vital in our society, a civilised prelude to all manner of business." 

Eggsy grins. "What's the advice - stick to 'the weather and everybody's health'?"

If he hadn't looped the tape around Eggsy's neck, he would have dropped it in his surprise. "I had no idea you knew _Pygmalion_."

"Ain't read it yet. I know _My Fair Lady_ backwards and forwards, though. Michael an' me like old movies."

Harry is drowning in a wave of jealousy, imagining this beautiful boy snuggled up to Michael, the pair of them under one blanket, hands wrapped around mugs of cocoa. "Michael and Merlin have not agreed on a film since they first started dating," he says finally.

"Really? Michael said they used to go all the time."

"Not to watch anything on the screen, I assure you."

Eggsy's cheeks flush, and Harry says, "I'm going to begin at your neck and work my way down," enjoying that the pink does not subside with his words.

*

Harry really needs to get one decent night's sleep, free of dreams. Last night's adventure had featured him on his hands and knees, stuffed with Eggsy's cock, while Eggsy's slim fingers traced arcane shapes on his back and hips. Just as he was about to break down sobbing that he needed a hand on his prick, Eggsy hauled him up and Harry's back was pressed close as clingfilm to that warm, bruised chest and his legs splayed over Eggsy's thick thighs, and at last Eggsy's merciful hand was coaxing his prick to spill. Harry bit his lips - sore and swollen in a way that told him how he'd got Eggsy so very hard - and choked down his cries as Eggsy applied his teeth to the nape of Harry's neck.

Those teeth, Harry sees, drawing up short at the unexpected sight of Eggsy in just his sleep trousers in the kitchenette, are clamped around a piece of shortbread he doesn't remember buying. Eggsy's making himself a cup of honeyed tea, spoon clinking against porcelain, and at the sight of Harry turns to fetch down a second cup. The bruise on his body looks just as bad - still dark as a _Pachliopta aristolochiae_.

It's only half-six, no reason for Eggsy to be up so early, though Harry is pleased that he's using the flat as a haven. "Is your injury keeping you from proper sleep?" he asks, nodding his thanks for the milky tea Eggsy makes him.

"Nah, I'm usually out for a run early, but I'm still so full from last night that I wanted a lazy day instead."

"Last night?" Harry asks. What will he say if Eggsy politely asks how he spent the previous evening? He cannot very well admit that he was sketching the boy and then sitting in his bath and wishing he were there too, a slippery delight in Harry's arms.

"Dinner with Michael and Merlin," Eggsy clarifies. "An' Merlin had made this shortbread. It's even better than the store-bought one Roxy brought."

Harry prides himself on his poker face. It cannot be possible that even Merlin and Michael, the most interfering busybodies he knows, took it upon themselves to arrange a meeting between Eggsy and Roxanne Morton, one of England's most sought-after women. "'Roxy?'" he asks frostily.

"Yeah, Roxanne Morton?" Eggsy says, picking up his mobile when Harry keeps his face rigidly blank. "She won gold in archery at the Olympics?" Suddenly, Eggsy's mobile is thrust under Harry's nose and on the screen is a close-up photograph of the girl. Damn her, she has a face that could sell any cream or cosmetic under the sun. "She's aces. You should see the portrait Michael's done of her."

"Michael is extraordinarily talented," Harry says, glad when the picture is out of his sight, though less pleased that Eggsy continues to swipe through what must be an infinite gallery of Google Images of Team GB's golden girl.

"Yeah," Eggsy says happily. "Finally got him to show me some of his sketches of you. Why ain't you ever just keep your curls?"

"Would you take fashion advice from someone whose hair was curling wildly in every direction?"

"If those curls came with this face and these clothes," Eggsy says, sketching a hand in the air, "yeah I would." Eggsy takes a long sip of his tea and says, thoughtfully, "And anyone who's been friends with the best blokes I know for their whole lives has to be good."

They are easy to love, the pair of them, and Harry finds himself smiling into his tea at this proof that he and Eggsy are of a kind in finding them so. They finish Merlin's shortbread in an effortless silence.

"Why are you here so early?" Eggsy finally ventures to ask.

"Dreading Charles's visit," he admits, amused by Eggsy's emphatic nod. "I thought I might start sketching some suits; it's harder to say no to something customised." He eyes Eggsy's bright face. "Would you mind helping me?"

"I ain't an artist," Eggsy says, hands up. There are crumbs around his mouth and Harry, rather than reaching for a handkerchief, is tempted to kiss them away. Eggsy brushes them away with the back of his wrist.

"But you've been training with me and you spent as much time as I did with Charles, so you must have ideas."

"Really?" Eggsy's shyness is endearing until Harry remembers how little his opinions have mattered to others before. "Well, he's onto something with that blue, his eyes are beautiful."

"That settles it, then; eyes are not the window to the soul." 

Eggsy laughs. "I think the blue worsted in eleven ounces, double-breasted with notched lapels and a single vent and Roman shoulders for the versatile suit." Harry hurriedly flips past all of the drawings he's made of Eggsy to offer the boy a blank page, but Eggsy refuses to take up a pencil. Harry does it for him, drawing the pictures that Eggsy's words create. "For the summerweight, that mushroom-coloured super-120, notched but no vent. Dunno about the dinner suit. An' I was thinkin' of that green windowpane check for the informal suit." Eggsy leans in close to peer at the page, and Harry can smell him, still warm from his bed, the last traces of the scent he must have applied last night lingering on his bare skin. "Course he'll probably insist on canary-yellow trousers or a cravat or something, just to be an arse."

"Doubtless," Harry murmurs, considering the colourful images he's drawn, absently drawing spiral curls on the heads of all three figures. "I think you've chosen far better for him than he could for himself. Now it just remains to be seen whether he will heed your advice."

"I can tell you right now he won't if he hears it's from me. Don't tell him."

That doesn't sit right with him, but there's no denying the truth of it. "And you, Eggsy? What would you design for yourself?"

Eggsy shoots him a startled look. "Up to you, Harry. I told you I trust you."

It's as close as he's come to any indication that Eggsy thinks of him outside the box of _employer_ or even _friend of friend_. He'll take it.

*

"We haven't seen you in ages, Harry," Michael is saying as he opens the door. One look is enough to get his hand to shoot out and grip Harry's wrist to pull him bodily in. "What's wrong - you look absolutely dreadful."

Merlin leaves off whatever he was doing and eyes Harry sternly, and Harry just barely resists the urge to be as histrionic as Merlin always calls him, to clasp his hands together and put on a downtrodden countenance. Whatever face he is making seems to go over poorly with Merlin, who declares, "Aye, you look like the arse end of an arse."

"Charming," Harry says. "Shall I go, then?"

"Not on your life. What on earth is the matter?" Michael was evidently a sheepdog in a past life, given how very efficient he's being about herding Harry toward the sofa. Harry lets himself enjoy the affectionate arm around his waist, surprised when Merlin clasps his hand as well. Good lord, he must look positively shattered. He cannot quite look either of them in the eye, but he can sense that they are exchanging worried glances over his head.

Their cautious silence stretches out unbearably, until even confession seems like the better option. "I'm in love," he admits hollowly.

"Oh, dearest, how is that not cause for celebration? Unless -"

"Unless what?"

"You know that we think he's no good for you," Michael says reluctantly.

Harry is beyond confused. "Why would you think so?"

Merlin interjects. "Is James Langford sniffing round you again?"

Flabbergasted, Harry repeats, "James?"

Michael looks chagrined. "He's back in the city. It seems he's Roxy's uncle, and so he'll be at the unveiling of the portrait - to which we've been meaning to invite you, if you'd ever deigned to show your face round here anymore."

Harry knows all about the blasted unveiling party, as Eggsy is even now out shopping with Roxanne to find her the perfect frock for the occasion. He'd asked Harry to advise him on what he should wear as her date - at the word, Harry had felt something clawed testing its strength against his insides - requesting only, for reasons he did not see fit to divulge, that his tie be heliotrope. Harry has spent the last two days designing something worthy of Eggsy and dropped his design off at the tailor on his way over to his friends' flat. 

Eggsy will shine in his new suit and Harry will not only have to watch him on Roxanne's arm but also keep from being drawn into a conversation with her terrible uncle, who walked out of his life a year ago without any explanation. He drops his head in his hands. Michael and Merlin were supposed to make him feel better, not enumerate his problems until they felt insurmountable.

"It's not James," he says into his palms.

"What?"

"He said, 'It's not James,'" Merlin translates. Harry looks up to see Michael looking needlessly impressed with his blasted fiancé, who says, "You'd be surprised how many people confess with their heads in their hands. I've had to become like a bloody dentist, translating their incoherent mumbles." Merlin kisses Michael's palm, then remembers himself. "What's the problem, then?"

"He's never looked at me as a romantic prospect, and it seems evident that his interests . . . lie elsewhere." Eggsy had smiled so brightly when Roxanne stepped into the showroom, and Harry had enjoyed the picture he made, showing her around, until he realised that Eggsy was courting her, trying to impress her. It hadn't helped that he felt positively ancient when Eggsy introduced him as the man teaching him everything he knew. Roxanne was beautiful without whatever filters various photographers had used, and she looked no more than politely impressed by what she saw. Harry wants so much to hate her, but from some place deep inside him he dredges up the words. "He deserves to be happy. I think she makes him happy."

"Oh, dearest," Michael says, and then Harry is being hugged between two marvellous men and he sinks down into the comfort only the embrace of old friends can provide.

*

Charles does not improve upon further acquaintance. Harry was not expecting him to, but it is remarkable how unpleasant the man can make himself in even such a short period of time as is required for taking his measurements or choosing a tie. For the sin of trying to treat Eggsy like his personal dogsbody, his punishment is missing out entirely on the lessons Harry gives in making cocktails, tasting wines, cooking three exquisite but fairly simple meals, and general dining etiquette. Charles had said he was interested only in the clothes, and Harry is simply taking him at his word.

In Charles's welcome absence, Harry proposes those lessons to Eggsy, envisioning how close they will have to stand in his house's small galley kitchen. To his surprise, Eggsy declines the first two, looking decidedly uncomfortable. "I'm teetotal," he finally confesses. "Ain't gonna have Daisy seeing me drink, not when Dean's at his worst when he's been drinking."

"I do apologise for not having realised," Harry says, admiring the proud determination of the boy, so intent on doing what's best for his sister even when he can't see her. "But the cookery?" He will not let himself dwell on the notion that Eggsy will put the lessons to use in making Roxanne dinner - or worse, breakfast.

Eggsy grins and says, " _Yes_ , Harry," and Harry feels a pang in his heart that at last the boy is using his offered name.

In Harry's kitchen, Eggsy looks delightfully studious, frowning in concentration and wearing Harry's favoured pinstriped apron. Harry is making do with the one a flirtatious salesman slipped into his bag when he purchased his beloved Le Creuset cookware; it is red and features a strutting rooster and Harry will not admit, even under torture by Merlin, that he loves it.

"Ordinarily, I'd suggest with something along the lines of blackened Worcestershire fillets or mushroom-and-cheese pies, but as we've reached the cusp of summer, you might find a lighter dinner preferable. So we'll start with potted crab with asparagus and sourdough toasts." He forces himself to say the rest, little though he wants to be putting ideas into the boy's ready mind. "If you find you have leftover asparagus, of course, you can fold them into an omelette or frittata the next morning, whichever your guest prefers."

It is hellish, feeling Eggsy dance in and out of his reach, watching for his shy smile whenever he hears a word of praise. Harry has never before considered that he might have masochistic tendencies, but surely this qualifies. He sits down to eat in his apron, needing the length of fabric to cover the stiffness that his bespoke trousers would instantly betray, and Eggsy, dutifully following his example, does the same. Harry has a lightning-quick flash of ducking his head under the hem of Eggsy's apron and sucking on whatever bit of the boy he can get bare. 

Keeping his table-setting lesson brief, he waits for Eggsy to nod his comprehension and then serves them both. The food is delicious, but he does not feel satisfied until Eggsy has left - after helping to clean the dishes, sweet boy - and he has sketched every look of delight he'd seen on the boy's face when he realised that his talents extend to the kitchen. Eggsy had made some noises of appreciation along with those faces, and Harry curses himself for how readily everything the boy does gets imprinted on his memory.

*

Tiresome creature that he is, Charles seems to have divined that he is very much not wanted on this particular day and so has burrowed in and made the showroom his second home. Presumably, the wealthy godfather has asked for a demonstration of what he has learnt, and as the suits have yet to arrive, Charles has settled on asking Harry for his lesson on the current political climate.

Suppressing a sigh, Harry introduces various topics, waiting to see if any piques Charles's interest. Of course it is Brexit that the man fixes upon, and it turns out, to Harry's complete lack of surprise, that he is firmly on the Leave side of the question. "It's just common sense, isn't it, Hart, that we need stronger borders," Charles blusters, and Harry finds the dreck no more appealing coming out of Charles's mouth than it was from any UKIP bastard's. "We're overrun with chavs of our own, as it is, no need to be bringing in other countries' dregs," he continues, with a jerk of his thumb indicating Eggsy, who's in the kitchenette preparing a tea-tray.

Appalled, Harry regards him silently, and Charles presumes he's won a victory, judging by his smug expression. Eggsy is just setting down the tray when the tailors' delivery boy enters bearing Eggsy's suit and accessories - everything from pants to braces, including shoes of butter-soft leather - for tonight. "What's that?" Charles asks, though he's been told not to expect any of his suits for several weeks; Harry had called in personal favours to have Eggsy's outfit made so quickly.

"It is for Mr. Unwin, who has an event to attend this evening. As do I, actually, so shall we say good day?"

"No, this I have to see. Does the soup kitchen require a suit these days?" Charles is revolting, and Harry is heartened to see that Eggsy is paying him as little attention as his jealous barbs deserve.

"Harry," Eggsy breathes in thanks, though he hasn't even seen the suit. "May I?"

"Of course," Harry says, shutting his mouth quickly before any term of endearment can slip out of its traitorous depths. Charles is eyeing him suspiciously, and Harry stops watching Eggsy run up the stairs and does his best to placate the interfering sod, serving him tea and offering him the shortbread he's been buying now that he knows Eggsy's fond of the stuff.

Far more quickly than Harry was anticipating, Eggsy is descending the stairs from his flat to the showroom, and Harry's mouth waters at the sight of him. He's splendid in the fresco-wool suit, just the silvery-grey of an _Ascia monuste_ with a hint of warm plum in its grain. Harry omitted the tie in deference to the predicted heat of the evening but honoured Eggsy's request for a splash of heliotrope with the silk pocket square. Eggsy's fitted white shirt is crisp and the open collar perfectly frames the beauty spot at the base of his throat. "Could you?" Eggsy asks, and Harry very nearly drops to his knees before he understands what Eggsy is requesting.

"Certainly," he says as calmly as he can, taking the cufflinks from Eggsy's hand. Any of his previous paramours would have known the significance of the design at once, but Eggsy is too new to this world - too wrapped up in Roxanne - to realise that the simple silver pieces are fashioned as love-knots; Harry gives thanks for small mercies as he fastens the jewellery to Eggsy's cuffs. Aware that Charles is still irritatingly present, Harry puts his broad back between the prat and this beautiful boy, who's looking up at him with a wondering smile.

"What's this?" Eggsy asks, fingering the design embroidered inside his jacket, where the lapel keeps it invisible from the outside and it rests, fittingly, over Eggsy's heart. "Thought you had that Kingsman logo put on all your designs." The sideways golden K that has adorned so many beautiful suits was simply not enough when it came to Eggsy, and so Harry had requested that an _Apatura iris_ , a Purple emperor, be stitched in its place.

"Something new," is all Harry will allow himself to say, and Eggsy's shining eyes bore into his. 

"I -" is as far as Eggsy gets before the front door opens again. Harry does not want to turn around, but he can't turn off his hearing as easily as he can his sight, and he's aware of the sound of Charles's teacup being put abruptly down.

"You're Roxanne Morton!" Charles says, demonstrating the zenith of his intelligence, as if she needs to be introduced to herself.

"Yes," she says simply, "I'm here to pick up Eggsy."

"What on earth," Charles says in a drawl he evidently believes is charming rather than patronising, "is an Eggsy?" He laughs and steps close; Harry, turning finally to face the music, admires the way she avoids being caged, moving as gracefully as if it were all choreographed. Her sleeveless boatneck frock shows off her famous arms and the foamy pink chiffon swirls prettily around her knees with her every movement.

"Eggsy is my date," she says, crisply, then breaks out into a fond smile when she catches sight of him. Harry burns with resentment at the discovery that she's one of the fortunate few whose smile enhances the beauty of her face rather than producing wrinkles or displaying unsightly teeth. "Ready?"

"Course, pet," Eggsy says, with a smile of his own. "But Harry's comin' too, and I don't know how long he needs to get ready?"

"Nonsense, I'll make my own way," Harry says, a shade too heartily. He'd rather eat his own heart than have to witness whatever intimacy these two might find in the back of a chauffeured car.

Charles's mind is never quick, even when operating at full capacity, and he proves it once again when he finally responds to Roxanne's statement. "You can't be dating that chav!"

If Harry were capable of liking her, it would be at that moment. One eyebrow coolly arched, she asks, "Why not?" His incipient fondness for her crumbles to dust when she clasps hands with Eggsy.

"You don't want to be seen with a pleb, not when you could have anybody, even a Hesketh," Charles assures her.

"What," Roxanne asks, contriving somehow to look down her nose and make her voice sound like she's scraping shit off her shoe, "is a Hesketh?" Her dismissive glance up and down is so comprehensive that it stops Charles in his tracks. Harry would applaud, except that he saw Eggsy squeeze her hand before they walked out the door, side by side and hand in hand. 

"Charles," he says, borrowing a little of Roxanne's frost, "please do excuse me. I have a previous engagement." It is satisfying to lock the door behind Charles, who flounces out while muttering darkly to himself, but Harry needs to get his head in the game if he's to face both Roxanne and James within the hour.

*

"Late again, you sod," is Merlin's greeting when Harry walks into the flat.

Taking the proffered champagne, Harry says, "Don't you look ravishing, darling." Merlin hates having to consider what to wear and so has adopted his usual formal outfit of a black shirt and silvery-grey trousers; Harry had enjoyed every single second of making Merlin twist in the wind before suggesting this solution. Nevertheless, it remains one of the great injustices of the world that nothing suits Merlin better than this monochromatic splendour. "Where's your better half?"

"Being praised," Merlin says proudly, which doesn't answer the question. But Harry spotted Michael even as he made his query, because his eyes are naturally drawn to Eggsy, who is standing next to the man of the hour, happily chatting with him. "Come see the portrait."

Certainly the painted Roxanne will be easier to contemplate than the breathing one, who still has Eggsy's hand in her kung-fu grip. She, like Eggsy, is carrying a flute of mineral water, and Harry remembers that as an athlete she must have denied herself alcohol for the years she spent in training; abstaining is unlikely to be a hardship for her.

Merlin leads him over to the portrait, mounted in pride of place, and Harry is lost in awe of what his friend is capable of. It is entirely magnificent.

In a clearing in a green, green wood stands Roxanne, a modern-day barefoot Diana in her strapless heliotrope-and-white houndstooth frock, a worn and polished bow in one hand. The quiver looped around her holds not arrows but flowers, glowing like sunshine in petalled shape. Her body is in profile, as if caught in mid-stride, but her face is turned as if she has heard something, and she locks eyes with the viewer. Harry is struck by the expression Michael has painted for her, not sly but fiercely aware and intelligent. That discernment is no lie, for only a true connoisseur would look at Eggsy and see his value.

Harry turns and sees Merlin next to him, his face softened by wonder. "How does he do it?" Merlin murmurs, almost to himself, and Harry does not let himself speak the answer trembling on the tip of his tongue: _because he has you to love him_. Michael and Merlin have built each other up into towers of strength. He squeezes Merlin's hand and leaves him in front of Michael's work, taking over the hosting duties until Merlin's come back to himself.

It is of course just his luck that the fourth pair of champagne flutes he offers goes to James and the striking blond man on his arm. "Harry!" James says, seeming surprised, though he continues, "Should have known you'd turn up here." As if this flat hasn't been Harry's second home since long before James Bloody Langford swanned into his life. "Sorry, should have said, shouldn't I, this is Roger. Roger, Harry."

Beautiful - and beautifully dressed - as Roger is, Harry is barely able to muster enough interest to talk to him. James looks as handsome and well put together as ever, and Harry is surprised by how little that matters to him now; he has to keep his eyes from Eggsy by sheer force of will. "I hear you're responsible for the man of the hour," James says.

Harry frowns. "You know Michael and I have been friends for years, but I wouldn't say I'm responsible for his talent."

"Michael Percival doesn't need anyone to tout his skills, surely," Roger says. Off Harry's silence he says, "I run a gallery."

"You _own_ a gallery now," James says playfully before turning back to Harry. "No, I meant Eggsy, the one making Roxanne smile like that. One of your clients, I believe?"

"A colleague," Harry corrects, wishing he had fortified himself with a suitable quantity of alcohol - say a jeroboam or two. How Eggsy is managing to navigate these murky waters without a drop of liquor is beyond him. 

"That suit doesn't look like your work, certainly," James concedes. "As if you'd let a client leave the house without a tie." Harry's eyes are inevitably drawn again to the proud golden column of Eggsy's throat, set off both by the paper-crisp whiteness of his shirt and the inky darkness of his beauty mark. "Harry trains men up into proper gentlemen, so mind your p's and q's, Roger. Like Debrett's come to life."

Harry makes a concerted effort to drag his attention back to James's teasing and Roger's polite interest. "Certainly I would be out of business if all of London looked and acted like the two of you."

"How many clients have you had?" Roger asks.

"A few dozen," he says, watching the last of Roger's champagne slide down his throat with a pang of envy.

"A veritable army," James says, lightly enough, but Harry remembers Eggsy's implied reproof that he was turning out clones who dressed the same, looked the same, and even trotted out the same tired small talk at parties. Eggsy himself is marvellously different, too vital to be fitted into any of Harry's _proper gentleman_ boxes; how stuffy he must seem to the boy. "If you've taken on a colleague, you must be doing very well."

"Yes," Harry says, wondering now how any of it could have seemed important enough to devote his life to. He wants _more_ ; he wants Eggsy. "Mr. Unwin is a very fine young man."

He knew he should have said nothing - his voice always gives him away - because James pounces like a particularly prickish panther. " _How_ fine have you found him, then, Harry? Should Roxy meet you at dawn, pistols at the ready?"

"Who am I shooting and why on earth would I use a pistol when all my calluses formed around my bow grip?" Roxanne asks, joining the conversation at this particularly inopportune moment. In her wake, of course, are Michael and Eggsy. Michael, Harry notes reflexively, has put in the effort Merlin would not, and is wearing a pearl-coloured shirt with violet trousers that only he could make seem entirely appropriate and even de rigueur. But Eggsy is singularly prepossessing, his eyes shining like jade against the matte silver of his suit, the heliotrope pocket square as unexpectedly and beautifully bright as the flowers in the portrait. "Uncle James?" Roxanne prompts. 

James is assessing him shrewdly, but Harry does not let himself squirm guiltily; he might be strong enough to stand still, but he is too weak not to drink in the sight of Eggsy so untouchably lovely. 

Eggsy catches his eye and though he looks uneasy, he says politely, "Harry, may I speak with you for a moment?"

This is the moment when Harry's life will come crashing down, when Eggsy will say he's got what he stuck around for and now he's off for a better life with Roxanne. Harry nods, dumbly, and follows in Eggsy's wake.

They wind their way through the crush of bodies - Michael never misses an opportunity to feed up his fellow artists, and Merlin readily obliges him - until they've found a corner to call their own. Above Eggsy's head is a framed drawing, a series of studies of various anatomies, and Harry picks out his own hands, his own brow in the dark pencil lines. Eggsy turns to look and points at the leftmost pair of hands. "That's you, isn't it? Broad hands tapering to slim wrists. Don't know why it's jumping out at me now, when I've seen this before I don't know how many times."

Harry would give much to believe that Eggsy's description of his hands was prompted by the same erotic fascination that every part of Eggsy holds for him, but he is a grown man who needs to face up to reality. "Yes, those are my hands, more than twenty years gone, veins far less prominent than now." Eggsy is holding himself very still. "May I ask what we needed to discuss?"

"Nah, nothing. Just wanted to get you away from that James. You looked like you wanted to put the length of a pitch between you." 

"I thank you for the thought, but I assure you it was not necessary. He and I had a fling some time ago, and I was ill-prepared to interact much with him, that is all."

"That ain't all," Eggsy says fiercely, his eyes the colour of the wings of a _Nemoria mimosaria_. "You don't look like yourself. And don't tell me different." 

Harry, trying for a reasonable facial expression to combat this caring scrutiny, fails utterly.

Still eyeing him with concern, Eggsy gradually settles into a smile. "You ain't even told me I'm being good, making small talk like you taught me. Just it's your health instead of the weather."

Harry finds it in himself to smile at how protective Eggsy is being, his heart set alight. "Demerits for being cheeky, my own." The moment the endearment is past his lips he wishes it unsaid. Eggsy is Roxanne's, at least for the night, and most likely for the foreseeable future.

Eggsy drops his eyes and looks down at his hands. "Harry, I have to thank you -"

Interrupting is a cardinal sin in Harry's book, but he cannot watch Eggsy's mouth shape the words that will divide them forever. "Please don't, there's no need."

"Yes, there is." Eggsy is implacable. "Not just for this suit that makes me feel like a king, not just for letting me work with you when I must have looked like your worst nightmare when I first showed up." Harry laughs despite himself. "But because you spent your time with me."

"How could I not?" He doesn't mean to sound so wistful. Those long days of working with Eggsy - without Charles, without any distractions - seem to belong to a past preserved in amber.

"No," Eggsy says, denying him a graceful exit from the conversation. "Think about what that meant to me." And he turns and walks away, leaving Harry to admire the way the fresco wool clings to the strong lines of his body and to try to do the impossible: think clearly about Eggsy Unwin.

*

How Merlin can look so ready to take on the day at this hour, after a long day of solving murders and a longer night of demonstrating his unabated lust for Michael - the spare bedroom room is too close to the master bedroom for complete privacy - is beyond Harry. Though perhaps it is just the last in a long list of signs that his bright-eyed best friend has made some pact with the devil.

His other best friend, looking equally energised, pops up then from the kitchen, and Harry moans plaintively. "Dearest," Michael says briskly, tearing apart a croissant and dragging bits of it through the puddle of honey on his plate, "what can I get you?" He jumps up, licking his thumb, ready to tear his kitchen apart on Harry's say-so, but then Merlin intercepts him and licks the honey from his other fingers. Their eyes catch and kindle.

"Oh, god," Harry says, reminding them of his existence. He rests his head on the table and waits for death or coffee.

Soon enough there's a delicious, life-saving scent in the air and he lifts his heavy head to see Merlin setting down a cup of coffee in front of him and Michael feeding his fiancé by hand. Harry pours half the scalding coffee directly down his throat and instantly his brain pops back to life. "Oh god," he says again, remembering. "I confessed my love to Eggsy."

As one, Michael's and Merlin's heads turn to pin him under their unblinking gazes. "Love-knots," Michael whispers, tapping his wrists and Merlin rolls his eyes and kisses him quickly.

"What did he say?" Merlin asks in full investigative mode, and Harry has never relished a spotlight less.

"Oh god," Harry repeats miserably, and throws back the rest of his too-hot coffee. That does not buy him nearly enough time and only leaves him with a stinging mouth. "He asked me to think about what it meant that I spent time with him." He levels a glare at Merlin. "I was doing as you asked!"

"And you'll thank me nicely, once you stop being such a daft sod," Merlin says calmly. 

"Did you know this would happen?" Harry asks, floundering. Michael's grin vanishes when Harry wails, "Why didn't you warn me about Roxanne?"

"Harry," Merlin says. "Forget being a gentleman and all the rules telling you what to say and do and think. Just ask yourself what you want your life to look like and for pity's sake do what Eggsy asked."

"I - I want . . . I want this," he says, gesturing between the two of them; they have gravitated towards each other, as always, and they fit together more perfectly than Harry had ever known two people could.

"Well, I didn't mean right here," Merlin says, but ducks down to kiss his cheek. "I'm proud of you."

Michael kisses his other cheek. "We love you, remember that."

"I do," Harry says, meaning it. "That's the best I have to offer him."

*

Eggsy is sitting on his front step, wearing jeans and the abominable jacket from the day they met, the tailors' package done up next to him. Harry's heart launches itself into his throat, because this looks like nothing other than repudiation.

Eggsy is too kind for that, surely. Harry slows his steps as he peers down. The boy looks too well-rested to have spent the night tossing and turning as he had, or even fucking Roxanne until she screamed - though perhaps he's underestimating Eggsy's youthful vigour.

"Morning." His voice sounds relatively normal, Harry is relieved to hear.

"Good morning, Eggsy. Please come in." He can hear the squeak of the boy's trainers behind him and turns, watching Eggsy set the parcel down on the half-moon table. "Well, the outfit looks marginally better dry than wet, I'll give you that much."

Eggsy smiles reluctantly, only one side of his mouth curling up. "Don't think you're charming your way out of this talk, Harry."

It has to be said, and better now than before he gets lost in the dream that Eggsy came over to declare his devotion to him. "Eggsy, you can discount everything I've ever said to you - throw out all of that rubbish about how to be a gentleman, when you've never needed my instruction for that - as long as you hear me now. Just because I love you doesn't mean you're obligated to love me back."

Eggsy's gone silent and Harry doesn't know what else to say, and they stand there in his narrow hall until a thump at the front door signals the arrival of _The Sun_. "That's the paper," he says uselessly, edging past Eggsy to retrieve it. It's pure reflex to read the cover before he tosses it on the table, the better to enjoy its muckraking with his breakfast, but on this occasion the rag has given him a picture of Eggsy, leaning into the arm Roxanne has looped around his waist, and hoisting his glass of mineral water. _ROXANNE'S RED LIGHT ROMEO_ the text screams.

In his shock, he doesn't realise Eggsy has liberated the pages from his slack grasp until he hears the boy reading choice excerpts out loud. "A regular on the corner of Smith Street . . . tarnishing Team GB's golden girl . . . gutter trash on the dole when he's not on his knees." Eggsy closes the paper and slaps it back into Harry's outstretched hand. "Hesketh," he says, making it sound like the vilest imprecation.

"Yes," Harry agrees.

"You wanna sign up to be with that? Ain't like they got it all wrong," Eggsy says. His hands are in fists, his knuckles the greenish white of an apple's flesh.

"They missed out rather a lot of pertinent information, though. Such as the care you take of your sister when you had no one doing the same for you. The fact that the people I love most love you like their own child. The fact that you've made me happier than I can comprehend, just by standing next to me."

Eggsy's face does something wonderful then, opening like a flower. "Yeah?"

"Yes," Harry says firmly. "Even though you made rather a hash of my teachings."

"Your _teachings_ \- you ain't the Buddha, Harry." Eggsy looks thoughtful for a moment. "Do you even know what you were selling? It ain't advice or fashion or even manners - it's _assurance_. That your client belongs in a world where those are the things that matter. That ain't the world I live in, it ain't where Daisy's growing up. But you spent time with me like the world would change for me just because you asked it to."

"I wanted that," Harry admits, "until I saw that you were showing me how little that world actually matters to me." Eggsy's shaking his head, as if he thinks Harry hasn't thought this through. "Don't shake your head at me. I'm shuttering Kingsman. Charles Fucking Hesketh is a sour note to go out on, but I'll admit the whole enterprise lost its lustre some time ago."

"And doing what instead?"

"Going back to my butterflies, perhaps. Coming home to them." He wants to say _coming home to you_ but the picture of Eggsy in Roxanne's arms is still in his hand. "I apologise, but it seems I've left you without a job."

"And here I came over to quit," Eggsy says, and Harry's body tightens until he thinks he can hear a creak. "I want to train as a primary-school teacher. Roxy's gonna do the same." Eggsy smiles at him. "I told you I owed you thanks, so let me say it. Thank you for giving me a place to be and for being there too."

"Eggsy -" he starts without knowing quite what to say. He takes a deep breath. "It was my sincere and comprehensive pleasure."

"You say such wonderful things," Eggsy says, folding himself into Harry's arms. Harry's so overwhelmed by the pliancy of the body pressed against his that he nearly misses the words Eggsy murmurs into his ear. "Shall I say one in return?" His answer is to squeeze the boy more tightly. "I love you, Harry."

*

Harry has gone mad from wanting - agony stretched out over the months he has known that there was an Eggsy out there in the world - but now he thinks he will go mad from having. It is vastly preferable.

Eggsy allows Harry to be rough and fumble-fingered in stripping him, ripping away the terrible jacket and trainers and athletic socks before divesting him of the rest in a frenzy. Naked, Eggsy takes quiet command, running a soothing hand down Harry's spine while the other hand deftly unbuttons his suit jacket and shirt. Harry's breath hitches loudly enough to be audible when Eggsy rubs his cheek on the skin he's baring. His hands are warm on Harry's naked hips, pushing down trousers and pants together and then cupping his arse.

Harry squirms, desperate and reckless. He wants Eggsy to mark him, to take him, to be as savage as he pleases. Eggsy lifts those luminous eyes to his and Harry subsides, content to follow his beautiful boy into this hypnotic space where they have all the time in the world to fall into each other. Dazed, Harry sinks to his knees and opens his mouth. Eggsy's fingers thread through his hair and draw him closer. His mouth meets Eggsy's thickening cock in their first kiss, and he hums, delighting in the sensation of that beautiful prick swelling to fill his mouth and weigh down his jaw.

The sounds Eggsy makes, muffled as if he's the one opening his throat to his lover, are enough to take Harry right to the edge. Rubbing the soft skin of Eggsy's bottom, his hips, his thighs, puts a glow on Eggsy's face; if he won't get drunk in the usual manner, Harry will intoxicate him with pleasure until he is as much of an addict as Harry is himself. He would kneel at Eggsy's feet for hours and count himself lucky.

"Give, please," Harry pulls off long enough to say when Eggsy's hips stutter as if he will pull out and leave Harry bereft. "Give it to me, all of it, please." Eggsy tips Harry's face up, looking in his eyes, and spills down his elongated throat in the flood Harry has fantasised.

Harry's recalcitrant limbs puddle on the floor, and Eggsy drops down beside him to lean over him and claim a kiss. His own mouth must taste solely of come, but Eggsy's is sweet and his tongue is gentle.

It is ages before Harry feels the pins and needles that tell him he might get his arms and legs working again. Eggsy has made good use of the time, kissing Harry's neck and nipples and growing erect once more, the privilege of youth. Together they collapse on the bed, and when Eggsy's hand lands by chance on Harry's throat, Harry reaches up to press it there.

"Harry," Eggsy says quietly.

"My own," Harry says, straining upward against that firm hand to kiss Eggsy's soft mouth. His hands reach above his head, stretching to reach the bars of his headboard so that he is taut as a drum while Eggsy presses inside him, fingers first and then thickly curving cock, until Eggsy's hand slides from his throat to his bottom, tipping his hips up. There is friction and heat and so much pleasure and above him is Eggsy, author of it all, and Harry cries out, lost in the wonder of being so completely owned.

When he regains his senses, he feels drops of cool water on his belly; Eggsy has found the energy to clean them off. "You are beyond my deserving, my own," Harry says, cuddling close.

"Not to hear Merlin an' Michael tell it. Like you hung the moon."

"You are the moon of my delight," Harry says without an ounce of shame or insincerity.

"I want that to be true," Eggsy says, tracing Harry's hair from brow to nape.

"I only speak the truth in bed," Harry promises. "And as we were elsewhere before, I'll say it again. I love you. I delight in you. I adore you."

"Enough," Eggsy says, leaning over for another kiss. Harry spreads his legs so Eggsy can lie between them.

"It will never be enough, I'm afraid," Harry says, running a curious finger over the beauty mark at the base of Eggsy's throat.

"I knew you'd want the last word," Eggsy says, the vibrations of his voice reverberating in Harry's fingertip. "Quiet, you."

"Yes, my own," Harry says, as Eggsy bites his fingertip and begins, inexorably, to rock his hips again.

*

Harry is planning to blame the roar of thunder for not having heard Michael properly, when really it is Eggsy, smelling like a honeyed summer storm and pressed up next to him, who is causing his inattention. "What was that?"

"Perhaps you should try some visual aids," Merlin says with fearsome asperity, though his eyes are content when they rest on Harry and Eggsy and blazingly happy when they turn back to Michael.

Michael smiles his heart-stopping smile at Merlin and says, "Let me try saying it again. We're getting married."

"Finally!" Eggsy says, bouncing up to hug them both.

"When?" Harry asks. He does not question why they have decided on this moment; he suspects that they have been waiting to see him settled. It is humbling, how little he deserves his friends.

"October," Merlin says. He would deny it, but Merlin is romantic enough to wait for the proper setting for Michael, who has grey eyes and hair the colour of autumn leaves. October is long enough away that Harry will have the time he needs to make their wedding suits and also torment Merlin with sketches of him in a lavender suit or in kilts in tartans not his own.

"Congratulations to you both," Harry says, rising to wind his arms around the pair of them, who still have Eggsy squashed between them.

"And ours to you," Michael returns, then turns to Eggsy with a wicked smile. "What made you decide to put him out of his misery?"

"Harry's easy to love," Eggsy says, as if the admission costs him nothing.

Harry feels his throat getting tight, and Michael's soft, "We know," does nothing to counter the emotions howling through him.

But Merlin clears his throat significantly and waits with an exaggerated look of innocence on his face. Harry sighs, thankful for the chance to find his equilibrium again. "Yes, yes, all my happiness is owed to you for putting us together." Merlin nods pompously, as if that will keep Harry from noticing how his eyes are shining. "Thank you, Merlin."


End file.
